I often hear people say, “We are living in an era of exponential disruption.” But what does that actually mean, and how will it affect us? First we need to understand the meaning of disruption and the nature of exponential. Disruption, or disruptive technology, generally suggests that by doing something differently or adding a technological solution to a particular industry, one can change the course of that industry. These game-changing additions will open that industry up to opportunities it previously never considered. The exponential nature refers to the rate of change of the disruption; this is explained by Moore’s Law, which states that approximately every two years, technology will double in processing power and halve in cost. This is partially the reason it took us about 20 years to develop personal computing to its current state, but the same level of development of the smartphone took about five years, and far less money. If we hold Moore’s Law true for machine learning an...

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